I'm curious - and therefore creative?

Kids are born curious about the world. What adults primarily do in the presence of kids is unwittingly thwart the curiosity of children. Neil deGrasse Tyson

Is there a relationship between curiosity and creativity? Many writers make one, despite a lack of research supporting the connection*. Even people who don't link curiosity and creativity still view curiosity as a positive disposition - misogynists and fabulists who write about overly nosy cats aside.

When I think about curiosity, I tend to look at what people are actually curious about. Historians, archaeologists, and similar professionals seem to want to know more about the past. Political scientists, educators, and journalists want to investigate the present.

Both these forms of curiosity call for convergent thinking. One gathers lots of information together and then comes to a reasoned conclusion. While there is a form of creativity inherent in forming new conclusions, investigations into the past or present seem less likely to produce original thinking than those learners who are curious about the future - the scientists, the engineers, and the inventors - the "let's just see if this idea floats" type of people. 

Divergent thinking - coming up with a lot of possible solutions and then testing them - is the hallmark of people curious about the future and therefore obviously creative. Creativity is often linked with mindful observation and that observation results not just in imagining possible solutions - but in recognizing problems to be solved as well.

Do educators, as deGrasse suggests in the quite above, "thwart" the curiosity of children? And if so, how? Is it our concentration on convergent, rather than divergent thinking? Is it because research is too rarely tied to personal interests and real-world problems? Through insistence on adherence to academic standards of writing, do we kill kids natural curiosity?

How do we encourage creativity in our students, our peers, and in ourselves?

Curious minds want to know.

 

* See: Did Curiosity Kill the Cat? Relationship Between Trait Curiosity, Creative Self-Efficacy and Creative Personal Identity, Europe's Journal of Psychology. Volume 8, Number 4 (2012)

How much should we be willing to pay for a use?

We pay around $5000 for our annual World Book Online subscription* here in our district of 7700 students. It is a resource we've had for many years, is prominently displayed on our student resources webpage as well as all media center pages, has a great reputation, is accessible from students' homes as well as at school, is a required resource for elementary library classes, and includes instructional resources for teachers. Most of us, even old guys like me, grew up with World Book so it's a sentimental favorite as well. 

But we may drop the subscription. Here's why: the usage just isn't there. 

We're paying $.70 a search. With less than one search per student being done in the past year.

When teachers were asked how important World Book Online is the response was underwhelming:

I can think of a number of reasons for the lack of the use of this fine resource:

• It's been replaced in many searchers' tool kit by Wikipedia
• We as librarians simply don't remind teachers and students of its availability and usefulness
• Teachers just aren't asking kids to do much research

Yet I am reluctant to drop this resource, despite these numbers. Children and adults alike, my library school professors beat into me, need access to vetted, authoritative information sources. Dropping paid database and reference subscriptions would be throwing my learners and researchers to the commercial Internet dogs**.

How do you determine if you are getting your bitcoin's worth of use from a paid resource - whether it is a reference source, full-text database, e-book subscription, or set of teaching products?

Inquiring minds want to know. This to me will be of growing importance as we build and balance our K-12 e-resource collections.

* This is for the Advanced Reference package which includes 5 products: TImelines, Kids, Student, Advanced and Spanish.

** OK, we do have some state-wide resources available as well, so it's not quite that dramatic.

BFTP: Continuum of library change

A weekend Blue Skunk "feature" will be a revision of an old post. I'm calling this BFTP: Blast from the Past. Original post March 3, 2009. (I added a couple lines inspired by comments to the original post.)

How are the ways students are using libraries, especially in the secondary schools, changing?

Accessing print .......................................................................... Accessing electronic/multimedia

Filtered Internet .................................................................. Open Internet (with social media)

Solitary work.................................................................................................... Social work

Directed use............................................................................................. Independent use

Information consumer ............................................................................... Information producer

Academic research ........................................................................................ Personal research

Static needs, resources, tasks ............................................... Rapidly changing needs, resources, tasks

And how might those changes reflect on library facility design?

Study carrels ................................................................................................... Study rooms

Tables ..................................................................................................... Upholtered chairs

Computer labs ............................................................................................. Production labs

Reseach stations ....................................................................................... Wireless notebooks

Print shelving and storage .................................................................... Collaborative work spaces

Fixed spaces ................................................................................................ Flexible spaces

Pencil sharpeners ............................................................................ Charging stations

Ethernet ports ........................................................................................................ WiFi

Desktops ............................................................................................ Portable devices

 What are the changes of library use you see and how do our physical libraries need to change to meeting them?